


Exaltations 1:1

by thereinafter (isyche)



Series: Transfigurations 12:1 [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Romantic Fluff, Secret Relationship, Tournaments, complicated fluff, liberties with Chantry doctrine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-01-10 05:55:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12292701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isyche/pseuds/thereinafter
Summary: Several months after the ending ofTransfigurations 12:1, the Chantry is still adjusting to its new reality, Cassandra and Leliana are managing theirs in secret, and there is a Summerday tournament in Val Royeaux.





	1. Chapter 1

The new clerk-sister watched her expectantly, pen hovering over her writing board.

“Thank the first enchanter and then close with the usual rigmarole,” Cassandra said. “That’s the last of them. Finally.” She leaned back in her seat and folded her hands behind her head. “I think you can go. If you would, tell Ser Blanche and Ser Oscar at the door that we are done for the night.”

“Yes, Most Holy,” said the sister, scribbling a last note and jumping up from the other chair. “I’ll bring these back for your seals tomorrow.”

“Rest well,” Cassandra said as she left in a flutter of red linen.

After the outer door sighed shut on its oiled hinges and she turned the locks, the pontifical apartments were mostly dark and quiet. Night birds sang outside in the early summer warmth, and a breeze rustled papers on the desks they had pushed together.

And there were other faint musical sounds down the hall. She latched the window, picked up the candelabra, and went to investigate.

Leliana was indeed in her room, back from her latest rendezvous with her Val Royeaux agents, a duty she insisted on doing “until she could name a satisfactory Left Hand,” which did not seem imminent. Her drab street clothes contrasted with the richness around her. She perched on a chair arm by the unlit hearth, picking at one of her stringed instruments, looking well and humming to herself, not even smudged.

“I am glad you’re as unharmed as you promised,” Cassandra said, taking a step inside.

Leliana strummed a little flourish and set the instrument down. “Completely unexciting. I could almost believe no one wants to kill us this week.” She smiled, tucked her braid behind her ear, and glanced up like an invitation.

They were alone; the doors were locked; the look stretched a line between them that wanted to contract. It had been only a day, but being Divine, even sharing the office, made for long days, especially now that the real work had set in.

Cassandra leaned on the wall by the door. “You know I do not like lying to the guards about private devotional time.” Then she let herself add, “But I gave Sister—what is her name? Julia?—the rest of the night off.”

“Well.” Leliana put a finger to her lips, not breaking their eye contact. “She could use the rest, poor thing. Putting up with your dictation.”

“We did finish quite a few letters.”

“Maker be praised,” Leliana said. Her eyes were bright, and she was clearly not in a mood for gravity. “That deserves celebration.” She paused. “Here’s a thought. Or a challenge. Why don’t you come here, and for our devotions this evening, we’ll see how long you and I can speak only the Chant.”

“What—”

She clicked her tongue and patted the armchair next to her.

Then she turned, stretched, and in a deliberate motion pulled her shirt off over her head, letting her hair fall haphazard again. Her skin was luminous in the dim room under the odd shadows of the lamps. Cassandra’s fingers tightened on the candelabra and she remembered it was still in her hand.

Six months was not enough to grow used to this. If Leliana would ever let her, and she suspected not.

She cleared her throat and cast about for a verse. “‘Behold perfection, for it is fleeting’?”

Leliana collapsed into the chair with a burst of appreciative laughter. After a moment, she stuck her arm out and beckoned. After another, she kicked out more clothes.

“Come to me, and I shall embrace you,” she quoted from the chair, still chuckling.

Cassandra crossed the room. There was a half-drunk cup of wine on the hearth tiles, and she knelt to set the candelabra beside it. The candles gave her three more shadows that pooled around her knees; she shrugged off her outer robe to join them.

Leliana leaned out of the chair. “His ears filled with the song of multitudes,” she said, looking shamelessly beautiful and pleased. A bruise was darkening on her arm; not so unharmed, then. She noticed her looking and dismissed it with a shake of her head, finishing the verse: “Andraste, dressed in cloth of starlight and armored in moonlight, stood before him. Or her.”

She slid her fingers into the front of Cassandra’s shirt then, and pulled her mouth up to hers, and she tasted like the wine in the cup and Cassandra felt her nakedness pressing through the summer-weight silk.

Playing with words made it Leliana’s game to win, but she would think of something. Surrender was never her first choice.

Leliana let her lips graze hers again and retreated, hands in her hair, pulling her up into the chair beside her until she caught her mouth again, and then pressed her down and kissed her playfully through the shirt until it clung across her breasts and shoulders.

Blood beat in her throat, and her clothes felt tight and chafing. She put an arm over Leliana in the chair, stroked down her back to her thigh. Between the scattering of old scars her skin was like petals, precisely cultivated, difficult not to keep touching.

Another verse came to her then, finally. “Lady of Perpetual Victory, your praises I sing,” she murmured.

Leliana laughed against her lips, and guided her fingers further down.

They found her hot and excited as her mouth, wet enough that there was no resistance. She gave a sigh of contentment that became a hum, and arched herself into Cassandra’s touch, fitting tight to her hand.

Her pleased sounds became definite, then emphatic; her breath against Cassandra’s ear, hair tickling her cheek, arms locking around her neck, quiet gasps and more snatches of the Chant that Cassandra tried to answer, and she didn’t know which of them was Andraste now, or maybe they both were, until she was holding her and feeling their pulses subside.

Then Leliana swallowed, and Cassandra felt her eyelashes flutter. “Mmm. ‘Tell me I have sung to your approval.’”

“Of—”

“Not to mine.”

She pulled her to her feet.

Some time later, in Divine Victoria’s ornate but very comfortable bed, having nobly lost the game, Cassandra was still catching her breath when Leliana said, lips against the back of her neck, “I have said it’s not lying, and I believe it.”

“I know.”

“If you’re ever ready to let me ruffle the conclave of clerics into a new and exciting fit, I would argue it with them.”

“At this moment, I might let you,” she said, eyes closed. “Just because I want to see that.”

“You should read the dissonant canticles by the Daughters of Song. Talk about sending the mothers into fits.” She couldn’t see Leliana’s smile, but could hear it. “Or maybe I should read them to you.”

It was like a prurient thought she didn’t know she had, plucked from her head and given back to her, and sent new warmth to her face. How did Leliana continually manage this?

“There are several, down in the restricted library vaults, you know. They had a few good points.”

Cassandra had stumbled across one years ago on an errand for Beatrix, putting it back instantly and then returning to finish it in snatches. A few lines had burnt themselves into her mind then, but not for their theology.

Leliana’s fingers moved down her side and laced with hers in front of her.

“And even so much of what Andraste wrote is songs of love. Trials, at an extreme. ‘You have stood with me when all others have forsaken me …’”

Her face and voice and everything lit up when she spoke in earnest about her convictions and interpretations. Picturing it, Cassandra had to turn over.

“…‘Nothing can break me except your absence,’” she finished, taking both Leliana’s hands, and meaning it.

Leliana gripped them hard and kissed her again. When they broke apart, her eyes were serious, like a very intent sky. “I think more might agree with me than you fear. I don't want you having to lie, even by omission. One day.” She curled her arm around Cassandra’s waist and tucked her head into her shoulder. “But until then, secrets also have their charms, don't you think?”

“I can hardly deny that in bed with _you_.”

“Exactly.” Her laugh was a silent vibration against Cassandra’s side.

“Until they cast us down or kill us. Or, if the Maker wills it, we get old still having this argument.”

“Maker willing, by then we won't need to.” Leliana hugged her tighter.

 

 

* * *

 

Leliana preferred to walk to their nearby engagements when the weather allowed. No one would refuse an invitation to the Cathedral, but she liked the sunshine, and it was important to both let the people see them and hear what they were willing to say in their presence.

For once, the city wasn’t trying to ruin her good morning. No graffiti from the remnants of the Exalted March or their splinter groups, no one shouting about free mages or elves in the Chantry or two-headed apocalyptic dragons on any street corners; instead, white banners and garlands everywhere in advance of Summerday, and trees in flower along the Miroir de la Mere.

The four plainly dressed Knights-Divine trailing her were even making an effort to move quietly, after the little instruction she’d given them, and succeeding.

As if to illustrate this, two girls in close conversation on a bench under a tree failed to notice her until she had almost reached them, then jumped up red-faced and bowing.

She clasped her hands behind her in the long sleeves. “Maker bless you this beautiful day,” she told them as she passed.

They looked like something out of a sentimental painting with cherubs; or maybe it was just her mood. At dawn she had joined Cassandra for the more ascetic sort of prayers in the brightening silence under their chapel’s twelve-pointed skylight, and then she’d kissed her before she left. Six full months of this and the Chantry was still standing, which was a definite point to her side.

Birds sang, the sun dazzled on the water, and lately she was more convinced than ever of the endless possibilities of the Maker’s creation.

Celene met her in one of the palace’s garden-facing conservatory rooms, where plants from the Arbor Wilds grew under arches of glass. Servants in feathery masks offered platters of tiny decorated sweets and cold effervescent drinks. Courtiers flocked by the walls. It was all extremely Orlesian, and she’d always appreciated a beautiful contrivance.

Just walking into it would have put Cassandra’s back up. They had an agreement now that she didn’t have to come to the palace unless specifically requested. Leliana would have the double reward of not hearing her grouse about it all afternoon and her variously expressed gratitude later. She smiled to herself.

“We are pleased to see you enjoying our little breakfast diversion, Your Holiness,” Celene said from her seat. The elf woman Briala sat to her side, embroidering like a lady-in-waiting, eyes sharp as her needle behind her mask.

“Exquisite taste, as always, Your Radiance,” Leliana said.

The empress had her own reasons to give thanks. The farmland in the south was rebounding ahead of expectations, and settlements in the plains were growing again. Imperial revenues were doing the same, according to her palace agents.

“Shall we walk?” Celene rose with a gesture that conveyed ease and desire to talk. Briala set down her work and followed at a prudent distance.

They strolled through the aisles of greenery, discussing the progress of the Chantry’s postwar relief efforts with the crown and the Inquisition, a web of contracts and alliances across southern Thedas that they had been crafting since the winter.

They passed a harpist, a piper, and then a singer, all in peacock plumes, performing in cleverly located niches among the plants. If one noble family had a bard at court, they all needed one, and so the empress was always well supplied with musicians at the peak of fashion and talent, in front of whom she would say nothing important, naturally.

The singer had a pleasant tenor that Leliana recalled hearing at the Cathedral before, which might bear watching. He started into a new song from Ferelden that was popular with the minstrels: _Black is the color of my true love’s hair …_

Whatever the provenance of the singer, it was pretty, and better, would embarrass Cassandra beautifully. She stopped herself from smiling again, but followed along with one ear while she listened to Celene on her other side.

The empress turned her head and changed the subject. "It's a shame we do not see your ... counterpart? Other half? Is there a term yet? ... so often."

"Ah, well, today she is handling our other audiences so that I can be here," Leliana said, keeping her face smooth. Celene had not lasted so long by being unobservant herself.

Under the impassive rays of her mask, the empress’s lips smiled. "We could often wish to split our own responsibilities so." Her eyes flicked back toward where Briala was standing.

Leliana let her own gaze follow. Her Radiance also owed them her throne, and she knew what moves were best not made.

They turned a corner around a fern the size of a small tree. “But we hope you will not need to for our tournament,” Celene added after a moment.

“Oh, of course,” Leliana said. “We are both so looking forward to it. And the weather is lovely; I will pray it holds.” She took a step down another aisle of flowers, Celene followed her lead, and they went on talking of the preparations, secular and liturgical, for Summerday and the proposed Exalted Council with Ferelden.

By the time she left the palace, the heat of the day had set in, and she accepted a carriage ride back to the Cathedral. Leaving her guard detail at the great door to the apartments, she walked in, felt her shoulders relax, and caught herself thinking of it as returning home. How long had that been happening?

By the window, Cassandra's desk was covered in books again, some open, some with slips of paper sticking out of them on all sides. After one too many arguments with the grand clerics turned academic, she'd begun throwing herself into an angry study of formal theology, exegesis, edicts of past Divines, anything dusty and footnoted in the libraries that might help them. She seemed to be getting a taste for that variety of combat.

Leliana usually preferred her information fresher, and the book pile was a poor stand-in for her company. The public audience must be running long today. She leaned over the desk, humming, and flipped a page on the top of the stack, then turned it back when someone knocked on the outer door.

One of the guards, with a single tray from the kitchens. "Your tea, Most Holy. Her Holiness Valeria says, 'Tell her not to wait for me. I will tell her about all of this later.'"

His impression was good. She laughed. "Very well. I’ll take that outside, thank you." The little pavilion by the grotto would do for her afternoon appointments, and she could watch the nugs playing.

 

Outside, she was kneeling down feeding a bread crust to the new litter of babies, who were clambering over each other in an intolerably cute way to get it, when her first appointment came up behind her.

Feet crunched faintly on the gravel path and then shuffled on the step.

“Mother Alais,” she said, and the feet stumbled. She dusted crumbs off her hands, then stood and turned in one movement to see a younger woman in the full mother’s robe and wimple, her eyes fixed on the ground.

Leliana took a step toward her, and she gave a curtsy that was more like a flinch.

Her chantry served the territory between the Western Approach and the Tirashan. Reports had suggested unconventional leanings in their new mother, and Leliana had invited her to the Cathedral hoping for another ally. This was not what she’d pictured.

“I don’t bite,” she said, tilting her head to catch Alais’s eyes. “Usually. Please, sit down, daughter.”

The woman bobbed again, a strand of dark hair slipping out of her veil, and bundled herself onto the wrought-iron seat on the other side of the table where Leliana had been eating. She accepted a cup of chilled mint tea, but turned it in her sun-browned hands without drinking, darting glances over it.

“Tell me, do you have nugs near your village? I confess, I’m quite fond of them,” Leliana said, nodding toward the grotto. She poured herself a cup from the same pitcher and sipped it.

Alais's gaze followed her cup nervously. "I do not believe so, Your Holiness."

"Of course we should cherish all the creatures of the world, whether they are beautiful or dangerous or neither. But just look at them! The babies are so precious, aren’t they?"

Alais did look, and a smile did appear briefly on her face, but then it crumpled. "Yes, Your Holiness."

Leliana made a few more attempts to draw her out into conversation, with the same unproductive responses. She only got multiple sentences out of the woman when she asked about how she managed her chantry: Alais gave quiet but thoughtful descriptions of her work with humans and elves, and clearly felt deeply about her calling. When Leliana probed for details about her congregation, though, she shut back up like a clam.

It began to feel like she was tormenting her to no purpose. Finally she set her tea down and said, “I must not keep you, daughter. Thank you for traveling so far to see us. I imagine we’ll talk again.”

Alais gave her hand the customary kiss before leaving, and stumbled on the path before she was out of sight. The difference from the confident risk-taker her agents had described was too big to be an oversight, and Leliana’s curiosity was too piqued to let it go. She decided to have someone look into what was troubling her.

Still, it was a blow not to find the connection she’d hoped for. Cassandra was making more progress with the former Circle, and her routing of the Exalted March had swept many over to their side, but these meetings with individual mothers—dozens of them, so far—were about looking for common ground deeper than that.

She looked out at the tall hedges and fruit trees planted for Justinia in her first year and imagined the future ahead of them. How long did it stretch? Months, years, decades?

She closed her hand around the heavy seal of Victoria’s ring and promised herself again that it would be decades.

 

Her third meeting of the day was with Zevran, who walked up through the garden at sunset, whistling insouciantly. “The best of evenings, Your Perfection,” he said. “Of course, I am still only helping on a, shall we say, provisional basis. But the operations you assigned me are all continuing as planned.”

“That’s good to hear,” Leliana said, looking up from the papers she’d spread on the table. “Sit. The tea is mint and honey.”

“Ah, even more perfect,” he said, and reached for it. “Climbing garden walls is thirsty work. Your guards are improving.”

She passed over that, and asked him circumspectly about the details of the operations. It seemed that the grand clerics in residence were still shaken by the events of the winter, and since Grand Cleric Triana’s overstep and exile, her former intimates were still scrambling for ways to distance themselves from her. Better signs than she’d expected.

She noted the relevant points for herself, then set down the pen. “While you’re here, I have another little job for you. Did you see the mother who left me earlier?”

“Pretty face, not so graceful of foot, on the verge of tears for some reason?”

“I want you to find out the reason.” Leliana refilled her cup and thought. “You could take little Sister Nadine with you. How is she faring?”

Zevran smiled with pride and none of the suggestiveness he typically put into it. “So well I would steal her as an apprentice, if she were not so devoted to you.”

She laughed. “The Maker knows His own.” Zevran pretended not to like teaching, but persuading him to take on other fledglings wouldn’t be hard. If there were more, and if he stayed on in Val Royeaux.

Leliana owed him more than coin. She wondered if he’d ever considered the shield and refuge the Maker’s service could provide. It was impossible to imagine him as a brother in Beatrix’s or Justinia’s Chantry, but now, with everything changing and everything she wanted to change—

He leaned down and smelled a spike of night-blooming jasmine that was opening beside the bench. “You know, in Antiva they say Cloudreach and Bloomingtide are the months the Maker ordained for romance,” he said in his more usual tone, raising his eyebrows.

Leliana sighed and matched it jokingly. “I would have thought that was every month.”

“Well, every season has its attractions, but it is tradition. If any personal friend of mine needs guidance on taking advantage of it, I am always pleased to—”

“I’m sure your friends have that well in hand.” She gave him a Sister Nightingale look. She was grateful for Zevran’s help, but he could be an awful busybody. At least he also understood the value of secrets.

“Your Holiness is assuredly right. In which case, I will take myself out of the way,” he said, getting to his feet and looking toward the spires of the Cathedral. “Until next week?”

She nodded, then remembered. “No, wait. I’ll be in Montsimmard then. Let’s say I’ll send for you.”

Zevran raised his fist in a salute she suspected was sincere, and disappeared back through the plantings with easy grace.

Leliana rested her chin on her hand. The sky was blazing now, turning the city to gold in the distance, like a romantic backdrop painted by the Maker himself. Maybe she would take his advice a little.

She stacked the papers neatly on the tray with the tea things, lifted it so as not to have to call anyone, and descended in the other direction.

 

* * *

 

 

Cassandra pushed the door closed behind her, ready to find Leliana, grumble to her about this day, and thank her that it wasn’t spent at the palace.

Although some of the palace had come to her, with all the titled parents in masks crowding the audience and patronizing the clerks. Still.

“Leliana?” she said. No answer. The rooms were stuffy from being closed up in the heat, all long shadows and silence.

She went from room to room opening windows, but each was empty.

She tried not to feel disappointed. They’d just been together that morning. She could use the time to finish off the paperwork.

She peeled off her ceremonially itchy outer layers of gilding and embroidery, hung up the sword she refused to go without now, swept the books off her desk, and laid out the unfinished documents confirming the day’s decisions.

The new High Chancellor Allard had drafted them during the audience. She’d pushed to choose him from the senior brothers because of his refreshing air of efficiency. If Andraste was smiling on her, they’d need nothing but signatures.

But there were the letters from last night to seal, too. She rummaged for the sealing wax things and began to read.

The first cool breeze of the evening came up, with the whispering of leaves. She shifted in the chair. Allard’s work was competent. She really might get through these tonight.

As she was carefully signing _Valeria I,_ et cetera, on the fifth document, the hush was broken by the low clear sound of singing under the window. She lifted her head; when the ink blotted and smeared, she muttered an imprecation.

Leliana’s voice; there she was. And the tune was familiar for some reason. When Cassandra made out the words, she snorted to herself, but couldn’t help pushing her work away and pulling back the curtain.

She was leaning on the wall of the private garden next to a tray of dishes, a graceful white shape in the sunset light, still in the robes of Divine Victoria, and serenading her with the thinnest possible veil of deniability.

Cassandra wanted to tell her not to, but the sight pinned her there like a shot. Of course she meant to be provoking, and it was succeeding on multiple levels.

Everything she did had two meanings. The sincerity under all her teasing still felt like a vast, delicate thing Cassandra could barely hold. She closed her hands on the windowsill. It was suddenly unbearable that someone had once disapproved of this.

She wanted to simultaneously shake Leliana for the risk, fight anyone who would use it against her, and collapse into a blushing useless heap at her feet.

She stood and listened and tried to think of what to say to express that confusion of feelings—until Leliana glanced up and broke off the song to wave to her, and then Cassandra abandoned it and went outside.

"I was just walking," she said with a cat-smile, rising from the wall.

"And singing."

"I heard it at the palace this morning, and it stuck in my head. Why? Did you like it?"

"Leliana."

Her smile broke out wider. "Some evidence says that means yes."

"Of course I did." It didn't feel like enough. She wished she could demonstrate the violently starry feeling she had at the window, give it back somehow, do something to match it.

"Well, that will only make me do it again."

Cassandra fell into step with her. A gust of wind made the hems of both their robes flap. "I have been warned." When they were beside the wisteria arbor, she added, “Although I do not know that either _sweetest face_ or _gentlest hands_ applies. Objectively.”

“There is nothing objective about it,” Leliana said. “I have no complaints.” She slipped her fingers into Cassandra’s and they continued into the deeper shade under the hanging flowers.

Cassandra would have liked to kiss her there. Instead, she cast her mind back to what she’d been doing before the singing.

“What you missed today was the beginning of the petition battle over Summerday weddings in the Cathedral,” she said eventually. “I am sure you’re disappointed. I remember Most Holy Justinia complaining about it every year."

"Oh, she hated it. I suppose that’s a good sign that some things are returning to normal,” Leliana said. “But shouldn’t the high chancellor be managing it now?"

"He is trying. The problem is that all the nobles consider themselves special cases. And somehow they believed I would sympathize."

Leliana laughed. "And you quickly disabused them of that belief."

"Very quickly." She glanced over and grinned. They were still under the shadow of the vines. Leliana squeezed her hand.

"What else did I miss?"

She thought back through the morning. “Another scholar writing a treatise on the Breach; we invited him for tea. Three classrooms of children to be dedicated before Summerday. Oh, and a second emissary from the Dwarven Merchants' Guild."

"We can keep hiring them for building, but they must understand we can’t renew the old lyrium contracts."

“As I told him,” Cassandra said. The flowers above them swayed and dropped petals into the dark. She picked up Leliana's hand and covered it with her other one. Listening to her think aloud about how to pacify the Merchants’ Guild and the Carta, as they neared the edge of their momentary cover, she dared to lift it to her lips for a second.

Leliana stopped talking and smiled, an almost undetectable movement in the shadows.

"I will miss you next week," Cassandra said.

"If the mages and knight-commanders and lady Seekers give you a chance to think about anything but their demands. I may know what that’s like.” She reversed the hold and quickly kissed Cassandra’s fingers in return. "Montsimmard will be very tedious."

She let go before they stepped out of the arbor. Cassandra folded her hands behind her back, and they walked again without touching.

The windows of the Cathedral glowed now from inside with the light of all the flames of Andraste, and the sky had gone red in the west. They stayed together in the gardens, talking out the day’s work, until it faded to true dark.

Afterward, when the doors to the apartments were locked and the candles were out, she took Leliana back to their arguably heretical bed, but couldn’t shake the feeling of wanting to do more.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The latest set of talks with the representatives of the College of Enchanters had gone on for over a week, since before Leliana left. Cassandra had invited them to present her ideas about how the new Seeker Order could support them, and they listened, but seemed more interested in squabbling with each other and the knight-commanders she brought in until far too late every night.

Today, she’d left them early to attend to other matters, still with no decisions settled and only more questions raised. The two older veteran Seekers who’d traveled from the Huntershorn were concerned about taking more time away from their trainees. The knight-commanders were apologetic and insistent about the welfare of their soldiers, the challenge of the training, and the danger of lyrium withdrawal, Most Holy, you surely understand. The mages remained understandably skeptical and wary of everyone.

No side was wrong, which made it all the more maddening, and she felt worn down to dullness by the time she left the room.

In the time it took her to cross from the council chamber back toward the Cathedral proper, the noon recitation of the Chant of Light began in the square outside, assembled voices calling back after the mother sang from the tower. She paused and turned aside, standing at one of the arched windows to listen. The centuries-old pattern was sunk deep in her bones, and it calmed her.

When the ceremony had ended, inside, the Cathedral nave was empty and still, closed to the public for holiday preparations. Her footsteps echoed. Andraste presided over patterns of leaping shadow on the vast marble floor, the great flame burning steady and clean, heating the summer air further.

Politics. She rolled her shoulders back and worked her fingers in the pockets of her vestments. At least one other Seeker would have to be sent for, likely Emery, and these two sent back. More research, to prove it to them. More assurances to Vivienne and Ser Barris. Or a demonstration—

A soft throat-clearing from the other side of the statue interrupted her thoughts.

“How did it go?”

Leliana's robed shape separated from Andraste's as she stepped around her bronze skirts.

She was expected today, but not so early. Cassandra felt herself unbend at the sight of her.

She came closer and smiled when she saw Cassandra's face, then added, "I’d say better than you think. Little birds tell me a few are still in there talking to each other."

"Let them, as long as none of them speaks to me again today."

"I sent extra observers to prevent bloodshed. Who knows how long it will last." Leliana put a hand on her arm, and her voice changed registers. “I missed you.”

Everything sharpened again. She said, “So did I, I told you,” and at the same time Leliana was saying, “Just … come back here a moment,” and pulling her back a step and to the side, into the smoky dark candle-greasy alcove behind Andraste. Part of her mind noted that the usual door guards were absent.

Her kiss was fast, just a brush of her lips, but it banished the rest of the dullness. She put a hand by Cassandra’s head on the warm metal and said in her ear, “That’s almost a proper greeting.”

Cassandra laughed under her breath, both relieved and keyed up. Leliana turned her face into her cheek, and it was exciting in the way that sneaking out of the dormitory as a girl was exciting, but if there was a worst place—

“I saw the sister go for more oil just as I sent them away,” Leliana added. The sound of distant approaching feet on marble began to echo. “But there she is, on schedule.” She sighed into Cassandra’s shoulder before letting go, turning on her heel, and stepping out into the light.

"Most Holy, I am so sorry to make you wait," said a high nervous voice, feet still hurrying.

"Don't be. Take your time.” Leliana’s voice moved further away, composed and reassuring. "Oh, no, let me help you with that."

She dusted spiderwebs off her hem, waiting for her heart to slow, then followed.

"Most Holy Valeria was just noticing that it must have been years since anyone cleaned back there," Leliana was saying, truthfully, to the young sister who tended the flame as she hefted one of her oil jars.

"Chancellor Roderick cut too many corners,” Cassandra said when she reached them. “Our new high chancellor should be more thorough." She picked up the second jar over the girl's protests and carried it to the flame's reservoir.

"I'm sure you have so much else to do, Most Holy," the girl said, holding the last jar to her chest.

"We all serve the Maker."

As Leliana set her jar down, she plucked at her sleeve and frowned at a smudge. “But this was not a day to wear white, I see. I will have to get back and get out of this.”

Cassandra decided not to say the “Indeed” that perched on her tongue, but accompanied her through the chancel door, past the new shift of guards, who scrambled to positions to salute.

In the halls as they walked, Leliana said, “ _I’m_ sure you have so much else to do.”

“And so do you.”

Her pace picked up, and Cassandra matched it.

“You are still having tea with those brothers from the university?”

Leliana nodded. “And then with the Dalish emissary. And the letters are piling up.”

“And half the Knights-Divine should be waiting for me out in the practice yard,” Cassandra said.

The guards at their doors said, “Most Holy,” in unison and swung them open.

When the doors closed and the rooms were quiet, they caught each other again. The smell of incense and candle smoke lingered in Leliana’s hair, and along the soft skin inside her collar.

“But they can learn patience,” she finished.

Leliana began to giggle and then gave herself up to it. “That book of yours really did get it all wrong. There’s hardly room behind the Grand Andraste for anything.”

She let herself enjoy Leliana’s weight and presence in her arms for the moment. “I missed you too,” she said, “but I think that might have been going too far.”

“What do you mean? It was all according to plan.”

“The Maker may challenge me if He wants, but I am not exactly eager for a lightning bolt.”

Leliana slowed and leaned back on her heels. “Very well.”

She’d been joking, but she knew it had come out wrong. “I don’t mean I didn’t like it.”

After another moment Leliana stepped back to arm’s length. “No, go.” She smiled again, looking a little tired. “I should remember more patience myself, I think.”

“For now,” Cassandra said, dropping her hands.

* * *

She felt a great deal of guilty love for the golden armor from Celene, but refused to make a spectacle of herself by practicing in it. It was bad enough in the old set.

She wiped her brow with a glove. And it was so warm out today that she would normally have practiced alone without any, but since half a dozen templars were waiting to train with the Divine, she would find something to teach them.

She kept seeing that tired regretful smile on Leliana’s face and feeling like a clumsy ingrate. She worked so hard at both covering feelings and finding ways to show them. Cassandra had never been good at either. She resolved to tip the scales back somehow before Summerday passed, and wracked her brain as she walked.

The practice yard was as far from the palace wing as you could get and still be on the Cathedral grounds. When she arrived, instead of the neat formation she expected, she found all the Knights-Divine crowded around a group of strange chevaliers, in a heated argument, neither side noticing her.

She raised her voice to cut through the commotion. "Knight-Captain!"

Ser Elaine, at the front, jerked away from the man in fancy enameled armor whom she looked about to throttle. "Most Holy!" She went down on one knee and the other templars followed, shamefaced. After a second the chevaliers belatedly did the same.

Cassandra walked across the dirt toward them. "What is going on here?"

“We found these lapdogs”—Elaine glared at the men—“fouling our yard, repeating lies about you, Most Holy.”

“We were told the field was open. We’re here for the tourney. Of course I meant no offense, Your Holiness, it was only things I heard,” the man whined in a heavy Orlesian accent.

“Ser Elaine, I expect better control from you.” She stepped toward the culprit with her hands behind her back. The chancellor’s plan to rent out the empty barracks to tournament entrants might be more trouble than it was worth.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Er … Florian Malboeuf,” he said quickly, licking his thin lips. His mustache bobbed. “In the service of Baron Mornville. Your Holiness. A thousand apologies—”

“Bring your men back later, if you must. Don’t repeat everything you hear.”

They lost no time scrambling to their feet and hurrying off the field, a few gawking over their shoulders at her.

Cassandra turned back to Elaine, who was still kneeling with her eyes down. “Take your positions if you want to train. I don’t care what he said about me.”

“Yes, Most Holy.” Elaine got to her feet and directed the others to their places. “I’m sorry. It’s just—he was saying Her Holiness Victoria was born in a gutter, and … worse things. And my oath is to defend you.”

“In that case, maybe I should have told him to stay. And his men." They would have made good targets in those bright colors. But he was already gone. She shook her head in disgust and walked out into the yard. "How shall we do this today? You and you, stand there."

She might have been a little rough on the Knights, but they were always asking to go harder. In this sun it became one of the more tiring workouts she'd had lately, and she needed that.

By the time they finished, she had wrung all the past week's difficulties out of herself. She left the templars' bathhouse in a state of uncommon serenity, and smiled at the novices playing a twilight hide-and-seek game in one of the courtyards.

When she walked into their rooms, Leliana was there and shut the door behind her.

"Cassandra, I'm—"

"You have nothing to be sorry for," she said. Leliana hugged her and led her back toward the study as she added, "I did not realize how little I rested this week. If my head touches a pillow, I may fall asleep instantly.”

"I was tackling the correspondence pile, which may not help, but come and sit with me anyway."

Cassandra sat on the long chaise beside her, keeping her back off the cushions. A tray of little toasted sandwiches was balanced on the footstool. The smell reminded her she hadn’t eaten, and she crunched through half of them while Leliana read letters aloud.

The best letter was a cheery short one from Ida at Skyhold, with margin drawings from Sera and a supplementary note from Josephine, although she still had no idea what they would all say when they met again at the Exalted Council.

They also had a tattered message of support from a village chantry in far southeast Ferelden, sent months ago according to the date—“That poor bird,” Leliana said—and a series of reports from the sisters working with the University of Orlais to excavate and document the Haven site, and a resolution from the mothers of Starkhaven nominating candidates for their new grand cleric.

After the alertness of eating faded, Cassandra felt sleepier and caught herself leaning heavily on Leliana’s shoulder. Her hair still smelled smoky. “I should go to bed.”

“Or you could just stay here.” She drew her head down toward her lap. “I haven’t watched you sleep in over a week, after all.”

Leliana was poking fun, but having her there to watch her back was still more relaxing than the baths. She didn’t really want to get up. “If you insist.” The warm brocade over her knees made a firm but agreeable pillow. She hoisted her legs onto the chaise.

“There are at least ten letters left. Do you want to keep going?”

“Give me one to read.” Cassandra stretched above her for the next letter. She broke the seal by touch and unrolled it. It was on heavy gilded parchment with a covering note in Empress Celene’s choppy personal hand. Underneath was a formally calligraphed schedule of events.

"We would be personally honored by Your Holinesses' company in the imperial pavilion for any events you choose, should you care to join our party,” she read, putting on her best try at the empress's accent. “May the Maker smile on the lists, with your blessing, and the best contenders bring home the garlands for their best loved."

Leliana chuckled above her. “I told her we would both attend, at least for the opening day,” she said, picking up the schedule to examine it. “You don’t mind taking the time, do you? I haven’t been to a tournament in years, but I loved them as a girl.”

“I have always enjoyed watching Orlesians fall off horses.” Cassandra yawned.

Leliana laughed again, and then her eyes went faraway for a moment. “Do you know the story of Isobel and Kaliste?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s an old Fereldan tale. One of the first I learned. I was always fond of it.”

“Well, tell me.” Cassandra turned her cheek into Leliana’s thigh and rested a hand on her knee.

She hummed a little and shifted into her storytelling tone.

“Once upon a time, a teyrn’s wife and his guard-captain gave birth to daughters on the same night. As they grew up, they became the best of friends, like dark and bright reflections, always together. When Isobel came of age, her father saw that she was beautiful, and became jealous, and shut her into a tower. When Kaliste protested, he threw her off his land and forbade her to return.”

Her fingers were light on Cassandra’s temple and behind her ear as she talked.

“She wandered and practiced her mother’s skills. After seven long years, she had become the leader of an outlaw band that was feared all along the king’s road. The fame of the girl in the tower had also spread, and the king summoned her and her father to his court; but on the way to Denerim, their caravan was waylaid by Kaliste’s men. The teyrn escaped, leaving Isobel behind.

“When the two friends set eyes on each other, they realized they were in love and didn’t want to be parted again, but their happiness was cut short when Isobel’s father returned with mages sent by the king. Kaliste promised she would find her, and took a lock of her hair as a token.”

Leliana paused. “But now we come to the point of the story. To settle the disputes among his vassals, the king held a royal tournament for Isobel’s hand, and announced it in every town and estate in Ferelden. On the day of the tournament, Kaliste entered the city in disguise, carrying her beloved’s favor. Some say she won the archery contest by splitting her opponent’s arrow in two, and some say she unseated a magister from his magic horse in the jousting, but however it happened, she won. When she took off her helmet, the king kissed her hand in admiration, and the teyrn collapsed in a fit.”

Cassandra had let her eyes drift closed, but she could tell Leliana smiled.

“Some say that was a gift from the Maker. Some also say that Isobel had bargained to sign her inheritance over to the king for her freedom, and that was why he supported them. But Kaliste crowned Isobel as her love and they rode away on the same horse, with the king’s pardon, and all the versions say they lived together in the forest ever after.”

She squeezed Leliana’s knee. “That is a good story.”

“The full version is much longer and more romantic.” She sighed. “And there’s the story of Ser Aveline, of course, but that one is too sad. I prefer them to end happily. I was never sure if I wanted to be the one in the garland or to win.”

Cassandra laughed. “You know that when I was small I wanted to run away and fight in the Grand Tourney. But I never have.”

Leliana said wryly, “And now we are too old and too important for such things.” She smoothed Cassandra’s hair back and settled deeper into the chaise cushions.

 _I would hardly say too old_ , she thought as she slipped toward sleep, breathing the scent of Leliana's skin through her robe. _There is no reason I could not …_

She stopped herself, but the image of winning Celene’s tournament for her wouldn’t let go, now she had thought it. Even though the Divine could never enter the lists, and it would be deeply stupid and rash if it weren’t impossible.

And even if she could disguise herself, she hadn’t tilted at anything in years. It could be humiliating without a little practice. If she were going to do this ridiculous thing. _Which I am not,_ she thought, and slept.

* * *

 When the sun rose, a fog had come in off the sea and the Cathedral buildings rose out of it like islands. It looked alien, almost like the Fade, but peaceful, blanketing and softening.

After the immediate tasks of the morning were done, Cassandra told herself she was just going out for some air, but her steps took her down through the city toward the tournament grounds. Finally, she decided to go and see what there was to see. The empress would be pleased one of them was taking an interest, no doubt.

From the top of the hill that overlooked them, the grounds were quietly active: tents that were masses of fuzzy color, people thronging around the field, riders cantering down the lists in qualifying runs, sound muffled by the fog. The favorites would not be there so early; it was the time for unknowns, newcomers, and those considering risky bets.

No one took note of her until she was near enough to hear the clashes of metal and the voices, and her guards pulled in closer to clear a space.

A boy in expensive green armor came running from one of the tents, pushed through a cluster of spectators, and dropped to one knee right in front of Ser Elaine, who had to stop short. "Your Holiness! Right Hand of the Maker. Savior of our land. I beg your blessing on my humble sword this day," he said breathlessly, holding it out with both hands. Curly golden hair fell over his face.

Cassandra frowned but sketched a blessing quickly over him. "May the Prophet bless you. My son."

He looked up wide-eyed and she thought, _Maker, he could be my son. When did they start knighting infants?_

“I was only one of many, and we all did what had to be done,” she added as they began moving again.

She'd hardly stepped past the boy when other contenders copied him and threw themselves in her path. One, another, a third, a fourth, more, trailing colorful surcoats and flattery. No advantage was too small to seize, apparently. Elaine, finding no passage around the supplicants, looked back to her for direction.

"Practice will help all of you more than any blessing from me," she said finally to the kneeling men and women, out of patience. But she made the gesture anyway. "Now, go."

They got up too slowly for her taste, although faster when she rested her hand on her sword hilt. But her path was still not clear. She supposed expecting a quiet walk through the grounds had been foolish.

A tall thin man in the dress of a palace functionary hurried up through the departing crowd, bowing and making apologies. “Most Holy, we were not told to expect you this morning. How can I be of service? May I show you to the officials’ tent? Would you care for refreshment?” He glared at the remaining onlookers nearby and they scattered.

“I only came to see a little of the preparation,” Cassandra said. “There is no need to trouble yourself.”

“Of course, naturally Your Holinesses would want to see and approve in person. We should have been ready. Please, Most Holy, sers, follow me.”

The officials’ tent had a good view of the lists and the archery field, even if the seat pressed on her was over-cushioned enough for Beatrix in her later years. The Knights-Divine squeezed onto a rough bench borrowed from the wine tent, and the functionary hovered nervously by a table of ledgers on the other side.

As the qualifying rounds continued in the field, now and then someone would approach the table to be entered in the books. Poetic aliases were as popular as impractical finery and masks in Orlesian tournaments, and the empress’s entire court was turning out for this one. Impressively, the man took down every name without laughing.

Some of the unmasked entrants stared, but they stayed on the far side of the table and got out of the tent as soon as they could, which suited her.

Elaine groaned from the bench. “That form. What does he think he’s playing at?

Watching the contenders attempting to qualify made Cassandra’s sword hand itch. They seemed to fall into three classes: youths barely out of the Academie des Chevaliers, courtiers more used to decorative weapons than real ones, and a few with actual skill.

The current pair were an older chevalier called the Leopard of Lydes and that blond boy, now with flowing plumes on his helmet and styling himself the Green Cormorant, who was provoking Elaine’s sigh.

Cassandra leaned forward to study them. “He will be down in ten seconds,” she said. “I don’t know this Leopard, but she seems to know what she is doing.”

When he promptly did tumble off his horse, doing unfortunate harm to his plumes, she added, “There. So much for my blessings.”

Elaine and her men all laughed. “I wouldn’t wager against you, Most Holy,” she said.

The next pairing were announced as the Lacemaker and the Golden Needle: two masked courtiers on skittish, over-caparisoned expensive horses, with frills spilling over their hands. They missed each other with the lances three times, then moved to the passage of swords on the ground and stumbled around each other like amateurs.

Cassandra wondered what weapons master at the imperial court was responsible for training these prodigies, and whether she was indifferent or always tearing her hair out.

Finally, the Lacemaker yielded, and the two quit the field amiably.

Two more rounds played out before the fog burned off. She got to her feet, finding the chair confining and too warm, and moved to the front of the tent to look out, then crossed to the man’s table.

No one was waiting to be entered. “May I?” She gestured to the book of contestants, and he jumped to turn it around for her.

She glanced down the list of meticulously ruled names. _Ser Collin le Beau, a red feather on blue; Karin the Catastrophe, orange chequered lightning bolts; Name withheld, three yellow stars; Otto the Tall of Orzammar, a silver hammer; Name withheld, a red dog’s head; the Lily Maid, green scattered lilies …_

Two pages back she found _Ser Florian Malboeuf, violet and blue lozenges._ And other names began to jump out that she wouldn’t mind a fair fight with: the count who had offered a bribe for absolution; the marquis who came to audiences to pontificate about Andrastian values and separate spheres; the lord who had publicly derided the efforts of the Inquisition.

Cassandra thought about the petty satisfaction of unhorsing them, and then (again) about bringing the victor’s garland back to Leliana, somehow, as a Summerday gift, and the desire to do it strengthened.

_There is no reason the Divine cannot knock a few men off horses in her spare time. If they discover me in the lists, the worst I will look is foolish._

She turned the page back. _The greater risk is to my pride. I could be on the ground in ten seconds myself, if I am so out of practice._

And now it was a personal challenge, and she could see she was going to go ahead with this harebrained plan.

She closed the ledger and pushed it back to the functionary. “Thank you for the loan of your chair.”

The walk back to the Cathedral through the midday crowds was enough time to make a mental list. At the doors, she told the Knights-Divine she wouldn’t need them for the afternoon and to go entertain themselves. Leliana was still out, and the mages had asked for a recess for a few days, thank the Maker.

She took a moment in her chamber to change into training clothes, write and seal a note saying the bearer was on Divine Valeria’s private business, and leave a second note on the closed study door to deflect attention.

Then, still feeling ridiculous but with a sneaking excitement, she let herself into the templar quartermasters’ storehouse, a double-locked but unguarded maze of shelves and crates that got older the farther back you went. After a little searching, she collected a plain set of armor that fit, a kite shield, a half-full pot of white paint, and a set of the white horse barding templars had used twenty years ago. She painted over the Sword of Mercy device on the shield and bundled it in the cloth.

In all the time this took, no one came in, and she never had to use the cover story she’d hastily thought up; perhaps the Maker had a hand in this too.

At the stables she kept the helmet visor down, chose a steady fast gray she had ridden before, and presented her note when she led him out. He had few identifying marks, and the barding would cover what there was.

Once she was fully outfitted in this rig and riding down that hill toward the grounds, she was all in and forward was the only way.

She tied the horse at the horse lines and headed for the officials’ tent. No one threw themselves at her or even looked twice at her. It was invigorating. She could see why Leliana still insisted on going out for her own clandestine meetings.

The same man was there, looking more harried than he had that morning. From inside the helmet, she butchered an Orlesian accent and told him she wanted to be on the list with no name.

 _Name withheld, white shield_ , she saw him write, barely looking at her.

“Take a tournament lance or two, they’re imperial issue and all break the same,” he said in a bored tone. “Practice if you want, or just report back tomorrow. Next?”

Containing the impatient keenness she always felt before a battle, she nodded and stepped away from the next in line.

* * *

They had finished the letters in the morning, with the sea fog outside that made the air heavy and everything inside the walls faintly damp. When Cassandra went out to walk in it, Leliana caught up with the ciphered reports on her desk, which had been multiplying in her absence.

After that, she found Zevran in one of the offices she had used as Left Hand, lounging in one of the dusty chairs. He jumped up when she entered.

"Ah, Most Holy. I came to the door," he said, "and a very pretty templar asked me to wait here."

"I wanted you to see it," Leliana said. He pulled out the other chair for her, and she took it with a nod. "I mean the room. Although she is a lovely person."

As he went to sit down, she said, "These offices need someone to run them who will do it right. Other than me, that is. It's what you're already doing, if on a somewhat larger scale.” She took a breath. “And it’s the same offer Most Holy Justinia made me, years ago. Think about it. I don't want an answer now."

Zevran stopped, and when he turned he looked genuinely taken aback, which she hadn’t seen since the day he didn’t die on the road in Ferelden.

She went on. "But right now, I would love to hear what you found out about our friend Mother Alais."

"Ah," he said, visibly pulling himself together and sitting back in his chair with an ankle crossed over a knee. “It is a very old story, I am afraid. There is a man in her congregation and, alas, soon to be a child.”

Leliana recalled her expressions and the way she’d held herself, and the pieces fell into place. “Oh, poor thing. I wish I’d known.”

“She has considered seeking out a mage or an herbalist, or leaving the Chantry voluntarily. I think she wants to do neither, but her time is growing short. She has written to this man she cares for twice. She believes you called her here for denunciation.”

“Don’t let her leave the city.” She was already reaching for a pen, her mind racing, full of concern for the woman but excited by the implications suggesting themselves. She began writing. “I thought I wanted a supporter, but what I want even more now is a good precedent.”

As she wrote, she pictured the side of the internal files she’d never liked keeping, ten years of secret families and lovers up and down the Chantry hierarchy, all in case the Divine ever needed to pull one of their blackmail strings. So many people could be cut free with the right argument, and now she might have a safe enough excuse to start it.

“Here,” she said finally, blotting her note and sealing it closed. She held it out to Zevran. “Take this to her. She may be a true gift from the Maker.”

There was ink on her fingers, and her signature had devolved to an enthusiastic scribble. Alais could still read it, she hoped.

He uncrossed his legs and reached for it. “What if she tries to run?”

“Keep her in Val Royeaux until I can speak to her. But do it gently.”

She stood up, already replanning her afternoon, and he followed her lead.

"In all the history of the Chantry," he said as they left the room, "has the Left Hand of the Divine ever been an elf?"

"It’s never been recorded that I know of.” She glanced at him and smiled. "But that’s no reason not to do it.”

Zevran kissed her inky hand and went away looking thoughtful.

Unavoidable obligations took up most of the rest of her day, and in the evening she returned to find a note saying _COME BACK LATER_ on the study door but a light behind it.

She unpinned the note and opened the door, familiar with this tendency to work too late.

Cassandra had her stocking feet on the desk and a massive book from her library stack in her lap, sprawled out in a looser and more satisfied way than she had been in weeks, like a large lazy cat.

“Leliana. Is it so late? I did not hear you come in.” She marked her place with a finger and looked up. “I think I can prove Grand Cleric Victoire wrong about Blessed Mother Priscilla’s position on how exactly magic can rule over us.”

“Better you than me. Debates over semantics in the Chant always remind me of that wall of pinned butterflies at the University of Orlais.” Leliana shook her head and set the note on the other desk. “But I will watch from the sidelines for your sake.”

Cassandra grinned at her ferociously over the book and went back to reading.

Her boots beside the chair were dusty; she must have walked a long way that morning. It was good she seemed rested and cheered after yesterday.

Leliana’s head was still brimming with the plans she’d been thinking out since her meeting with Zevran, but they were just informed daydreams until Alais agreed to cooperate. She would tell her when they had a real foundation, she decided. Surprise her.

She went to find her draft of the weekly sunset address that it was her turn to deliver next, and sat down in her own chair to revise it. But she kept drifting into looking at Cassandra over her work, imagining how she’d take the news, and catching her looking back.

“What are you thinking?” Cassandra said one of these times.

“Nothing too unusual.” Leliana let a teasing note into her voice to distract her. “What are you?”

She smiled and turned a page without explaining, and Leliana forced her attention back to her writing.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Cassandra hooked a finger under the neck of her helmet and tugged at it where it chafed.

Around her, riders adjusted jingling tack and horses snuffled, men spat in the dirt, others laid wagers or cursed or prayed for luck. Her match was second after the current one.

The horse rolled his eye back to look at her, probably expecting a carrot she didn’t have. She owed him some kind of recompense for putting up with this. He was a bloody-minded beast, but she sympathized.

The Maker had continued to smile on her plan for three days of qualifying rounds. She’d cut or postponed as much of her personal schedule as she could without Leliana noticing, and glowered at people so they wouldn’t ask for explanations, and no one dared. That was, she supposed, the best benefit of being half of the Prophet’s exalted representatives on earth.

She hadn’t felt especially exalted in her first match. Under the old Order Seekers had done cavalry training with templars, and there was tilting at rings and quintains for fun, but it had been years. The practice she’d managed beforehand was barely up to her standards, the ground in the lists was churned into uneven ruts and smelled of a week of horseshit, and on top of that, on the first pass the horse had shied when the other horse’s filmy trappings flapped at him the wrong way. She chose to dodge rather than try for an awkward hit.

Fortunately her opponent was easy to read, even through visor slits; on the second pass she’d quieted her mind, trusted her body to remember, and the lance had gone where she wanted with a satisfying impact. Not many cheers that time, but after the second day’s matches there were more, and she began to hear talk about the mysterious chevalier of the white shield, and odds being given in the stands.

Cassandra wouldn’t deny her chances felt better now. Still, complacency invited accidents. She checked her saddle again and smoothed the white drape over the horse’s flank.

She had managed much of it so far—an anonymous safe house for the horse and the gear, getting in and out of the Cathedral undiscovered—by asking herself what Leliana would do. And practicing her protocols and tactics did make keeping the secret more exciting. When she returned each evening, she’d said vaguely true things about her day and held her tongue otherwise. Leliana hadn’t asked for details, which was unlike her, but another small blessing.

One of the next contenders, an overeager boy in yellow, spurred his mount out of the waiting area, kicking up a cloud of dust. Cassandra’s horse snorted and bared his teeth. She coughed inside the helmet and tasted grit.

Attending as Valeria I and competing in this disguise on the same day would be hugely tricky; there was no way around it; but Leliana expected her in the box.

And also expected her back tonight for the sunset address to the Cathedral, so this would need to wrap up soon.

Shortly, there was a crash of colliding metal, and she winced as the boy was dragged back through the dust to the medic’s tent. Still moving, at least.

The trumpets sounded the call for the next contenders, and she was up. It was her last match to qualify for the tournament proper. She shook her head at the herald’s offer to announce her and waited while her opponent, proclaimed as Ser Collinet dit-le-Beau, rode slowly along the stands with his helm off, tossing flowers to girls in the front rows. They threw back ribbons and sleeves that he mostly failed to catch. Cassandra kept her horse reined on her side of the lists for what felt like half an hour before he tired of this.

Then he left himself wide open on the first passage, and she felt a little sorry for all those girls, but the sun was sinking and she had somewhere to be. She took the opening, he went heels over head into the dirt—albeit gracefully, with a bow to her when he got up— and she had qualified.

* * *

Leliana was changing for the sunset address when Cassandra entered in a rush, with wet hair and smelling of soap like she'd been training.

"I'm late," she said, "I'm sorry." She glanced at what Leliana was holding, then disappeared into her chamber and came back pulling hers on.

Having dispensed with the security risk and extravagance of body servants, they helped each other into the regalia now, as a rule. Leliana didn't particularly miss the wide-eyed, loose-tongued novice dressing maids, or the trains Justinia had sometimes worn that took six sisters to hold.

Cassandra turned her back, and Leliana fastened the buttons in the middle that always made her curse, tugging the fabric over an assortment of new scratches and bruises, she noticed.

Then Cassandra did hers. “I have the benediction prepared, don’t worry,” she added as she smoothed Leliana’s stole behind her neck.

“Hitting things helped you focus on it?”

She chuckled. “If I must write sermons, it does help.”

“Perhaps I should try that for next time,” said Leliana.

They took hands for a moment and let go at the doors. “Shall we?”

In the sanctuary of the Cathedral, the high dais was a few yards in front of Andraste to silhouette speakers or singers against the flame, and the steps were low and many so they might glide, not climb. But she had as little patience for this as Cassandra, and they both took them in long strides.

The statue was decked with the most heat-resistant flowers the brothers could find. The nave had been fully cleaned for the coming holiday, and the sanded and scrubbed pews were filled with Cathedral folk: scholars and novices, lay brothers and sisters, mothers, templars, grand clerics.

From up there, all the divisions were visible. The new elven and dwarven sisters and brothers made a small knot on one side, and the most conservative mothers sat stiffly far to the other side.

As far forward as they dared, beside the elves and dwarves, were a loose faction of younger sisters and mothers who had stopped covering their heads and begun dressing in an assertively practical way in emulation of the new Divines. They sought out elves and mages to befriend and some had even gone to the templar barracks to ask for weapons training, despite growing up cloistered and unprepared for it.

Leliana had joked that she enjoyed being able to start a fashion again, but she felt more protective of them than flattered. Their hearts were in the right place. Cassandra admitted that too many Seeker candidates was better than too few, and she’d caught her giving them tips.

Tonight some were talking among themselves and some were gazing raptly toward Andraste, or at them, waiting for her to begin. She noticed a pair of them holding hands while they did so, and felt her protective instinct sharpen.

She stepped up to the gilded rail and cleared her throat, and the talk from below quieted.

The text she had taken to speak on was "Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow." While she spoke, she tried to make eye contact with as many of the women and men before her as she could. She spoke to them, drawing on her talent for persuasion, about how light came in many forms and the Chantry needed them all to illuminate the world the Maker had left.

When she spied Mother Alais at the far end of a pew, alone, listening with her arms folded tightly around herself, Leliana put more into her words to reach her.

She finished not knowing if she’d succeeded. Cassandra touched her back and stepped forward to give her benediction, which was short and forthright, like everything she wrote.

After the closing words, when they descended from the dais, people crowded about at a respectful distance. Some had hopeful faces, wanting to buttonhole a Divine to discuss things.

“Beautiful words, Your Holiness,” said Grand Cleric Victoire, rising from her seat in front. “May the world take them to heart in these times.”

“Yes,” Leliana said, clasping her hand briefly, “I pray we all can.”

The sisters behind her stood up and milled about in their seats, collecting books and bundles.

“Victoire,” Cassandra said, “if you have a moment?”

“My moments are yours, Most Holy.” The grand cleric turned from her group of sisters to walk with them through the open doors.

“I am more and more convinced that Blessed Mother Priscilla was not alone in her thinking,” Cassandra began as they entered the corridor. “Avita of Cumberland’s sermons on the uses of magic take the same approach.”

Leliana listened and made supportive remarks as she’d promised while they traded polite arguments pointed with references. Victoire was no longer so hostile as she’d once been, but she liked to argue and Cassandra had adopted her as a whetstone of sorts.

A host of the enthusiastic mothers and sisters trailed behind them at the same respectful distance, not too far to listen in. Well, let them. Mother Priscilla had been an early advocate of Circle reform, and they should know about her.

Leliana looked back for Alais coming out of the door, but did not see her.

“Grand Cleric Ioanna’s contemporary commentary on Transfigurations is quite harsh on the status of mages,” Victoire was saying. “Much more so than interpretations have tended to be in this age.”

“I suspect that is not a coincidence,” said Cassandra.

Victoire chuckled and inclined her head in temporary concession. “Ah, it may not be.” She turned to look down the hall and picked up the skirts of her robes again. “But we will have to take this up again in a fortnight, Most Holy. I saw that you postponed our meeting. I look forward to it then.”

“Yes,” Cassandra said with a slight frown, and Victoire swept off toward the clerics’ quarters.

Once they reached the palace wing and the hangers-on had dispersed, Leliana said playfully, “You rescheduled with Victoire? Why? Didn’t you want to debate her into the ground?”

Cassandra froze, then walked ahead, not making eye contact. “I … can’t tell you.”

“Why ever not? Now I’m actually curious.”

She groaned. “Just please do not ask about it, Leliana. I promise you will know very soon.”

“Oh, no, do you realize how much worse you made it?”

“Yes,” she said, her tone getting shorter, “but I would like you to make the great sacrifice of restraining yourself, because _surprising you_ when you don’t is beyond me.”

At this Leliana relented. “In that case, I will absolutely resist.” She caught up as Cassandra approached the doors and put a hand on her shoulder. “Whatever you’re planning must be something.”

Cassandra covered it with her own hand. “That is one way to put it.” She smiled ruefully and pushed through the doors in a swirl of robes.

* * *

The next morning, after her other meetings, Leliana went to the Left Hand chambers by the rookeries, dressed for incognito work, and used one of the hidden passages in the lower storage levels to slip out into the city.

She met Zevran at a patisserie in the fashionable district that was owned by one of her agents; not all covert meetings had to happen in dark alleys and warehouses, after all.

The proprietor seated them in her favorite of his private rooms and served an overgenerous assortment of pastries and drinks before bowing out of the way.

"So," Leliana said, folding back her hood, "is she coming?"

Zevran picked up a green-iced petit four. "She told me yes, but she looked unsure."

"I suppose we'll just wait and see." Leliana took a glass of a clear sparkling cordial steeped with small bright flowers, and watched him over the rim as she sipped. "Have you given more thought to my offer?"

He set it down on the plate before him. “Yes, but I have not decided. To become a servant of the Maker … it was never how I saw myself, and yet there is an appeal.”

“I felt the same before Mother Dorothea saved me. Not that I presume to save you, of course.” She smiled. “That’s the Maker’s business. I just want your undeniable skill to help save the Chantry.”

“And flattery doesn’t hurt,” he said, grinning in his practiced rakish fashion.

“She gave me a home when I needed one, and you will always find one here, even if you don’t accept.”

Zevran’s expression softened, but before he could manage an answer, there was a faint tap-tap on the door of the private room.

He went to open it instead, a hand on his dagger, and then stepped aside to wave Mother Alais in. She entered hesitantly. “Most Holy? Is that you? I’m sorry, I …”

Zevran stepped out behind her and closed the door silently.

Leliana said, "Let's have another try at this, yes? I really don't bite if you don't deserve it, and I don't believe you do."

Alais took a breath and came forward. She was holding Leliana's note. "I was given this? By him.” She glanced back after Zevran. “But I don't understand."

"All my intelligence tells me you have served the Maker well,” Leliana said. “What I want you to know is that I—we—want you to keep on doing so. With your love, and your family, if you choose."

Alais blanched and then sat down heavily in the other chair without asking permission.

"I have never believed in barring the servants of the Maker from His greatest gifts," Leliana went on. "It's a reform I intend to make happen regardless, but with your help, if you agree, I could do so much faster—" She caught herself. Alais was still looking ashen and stunned.

“I’m sorry. Let me start again. Have some of this," she said, rising and pressing a glass of cordial into her hand. "It's popular at the imperial court just now, and I've been told it soothes the stomach."

Alais peered into the glass, then took a cautious sip and made a surprised noise.

“Diverting, isn’t it?” Leliana went back to her side of the table and sat, leaning toward her. “I know about you and Brother Ricard,” she said, watching Alais’s face. “But I have no interest in separating people who love each other. And what’s more, I don't see why a mother of the Chantry cannot be a mother of children, if she wishes."

“How did you …” Alais stopped and swallowed, then spoke more firmly. “You don’t?”

“I saw you in the congregation last night when I spoke about lights in the shadow. We need all of them we can get, you must agree.”

Leliana chose a small pastry and took a bite, then pushed the tray toward her, deliberately drawing out the silence to give her a chance to think.

“You’ll be protected either way. But, if you come before the grand clerics with me and allow me to tell your story, I want you to know, I will personally be in your debt. And that is not a thing to take lightly.”

Alais’s color returned slowly as she examined the tray. She breathed in the meditative pattern Chantry sisters were taught to calm themselves.

“I’m grateful, Most Holy.” She looked up, dark eyes intelligent. “And—pardon me for asking, but Divine Valeria thinks as you do?”

“Yes,” Leliana said without hesitation. They only ever argued about the speed of change, and the risks of her plans. Well, and plenty of other things, but not this one now.

Alais nodded. “I see the honor you’re offering,” she said. “And I’d rather be on your side than not, for many reasons. I did—do—support your election.”

“Thank you.”

She picked up a petit four and broke it in half. “But this involves someone else too, and he should know before I agree.”

Of course she would want that. “If you write to him, I can have a message sent safely.”

“That’s extremely kind, Your Holiness.” Her face was set and determined; Leliana could see she was firm on this and nothing else would be decided yet.

She went to the door to pull Zevran back in, and told Alais that she could trust him, with the message and to see her back. On their way out, he offered her his arm and suggested hiring a sedan chair if she was tired.

Once they had gone, Leliana put her hood up and asked the proprietor to wrap the rest of the sweets for her; there were still enough refugee children at the Cathedral to make them disappear in a flash.

She walked back by a more circuitous way herself, wanting to think.

So, there would be a fortnight’s delay at least, but the plan was still in motion. One unforeseen benefit: it gave her time to contemplate whatever Cassandra had up her sleeve. Usually that was just herself, and enough, Leliana thought, smiling under her hood. This was a new development. She’d been madly curious ever since “surprising you,” even though she’d promised not to pry.

And on top of that, there were all the Summerday ceremonies coming to enjoy, not to mention Celene’s tournament. Her card was quite full. If Alais ended up choosing not to dance, she would find another way.

 


	4. Chapter 4

The day of the tournament was certainly giving her more to think about, Leliana reflected, rising to get a better view from the front of the imperial box. Not the way she’d hoped, given that she’d been mingling with Celene’s guests alone for an hour. Cassandra had been gone when she awoke, and left a note saying only that she had not forgotten and would meet them here, underlined.

If this had something to do with the surprise, she was still resisting the temptation to investigate. But her mind kept going back to it, irritatingly, like one of the court lapdogs with a bone. What could she be doing? How late would she be? It was so unlike her to break even small commitments.

Leliana had also been excited that morning to receive a letter from Alais, agreeing to meet with them both in the Cathedral to further discuss her plan. It was coming together enough to finally tell her—if they were ever alone in the same room today.

She sighed to herself and made herself refocus on the sunny field, the waving pennants, the light glancing off polished shields and armor. The tournament heralds were announcing the finalists to compete today as they paraded past the stands, one by one, masked or not, under birth names and titles or assumed ones.

It was a pretty day for it. Not so warm that she was uncomfortable in her layers of linen and silk. The headdress would have been too much, but the veil she’d substituted kept the sun off her neck.

Celene, in a lighter version of her full court dress and half-mask, swept toward the banner-festooned rail beside her. “It is all splendid, no?”

“Oh, yes,” Leliana said, turning to her. “I see so many of the great houses represented, and so many fascinating names.”

“Ser Mathieu has acquitted himself well on our behalf so far.” The empress nodded toward a rider bearing the Valmont lion. He was young for an imperial chevalier, and had his eye on Michel de Chevin’s former place, they said.

“But the other one everyone is talking about is this one with no name at all and no device. No one has even seen their face, I hear.” Celene gave a mock gasp of surprise and tapped her fan open. “Some people are saying it is a templar, did you know, Most Holy? Do you think it could be one of yours?”

“I will have to watch for this,” Leliana said, interested. A piece of city gossip she hadn’t heard yet. She’d been too busy to read all the reports this past week. “Point them out to me?”

Celene glanced over her shoulder and waved one of the courtiers to her side. “Point out to Her Holiness this mysterious chevalier that defeated you.”

They all watched the contenders ride past the box, saluting with fists or dipping their lances. Then the man reached out to point and sniffed behind his mask. “There, Your Radiance, Most Holy.”

Celene nodded and he faded back into the entourage.

The rider did look something like a templar, but a rather out-of-date one. Draping their horses in white had been a brief and not very practical fad in the Order before Justinia, she’d heard.

Still, the knights who remained in service had little to do around Val Royeaux at the moment. Ser Elaine had been quite enthusiastic about the tournament the last time she led Leliana’s guard shift. It could be one of them, she thought, and studied the figure as they passed under. There was something that caught at her attention.

But just then she was offered a drink and had to exchange pleasantries with the Fereldan ambassador, and when she turned back to the field they were out of sight.

Luckily, the nameless knight returned to the lists for the first match, so that Leliana could continue her study.

The opponent was a flashy rider who called himself Ser Silverfists and had his mail and mask polished to mirror shine. He announced through the herald that his efforts were “for the honor of Empress Celene, long may she reign.”

The trumpets sounded, and three times they each dodged the other’s lance, so it moved to swords on the ground. There, though, Silverfists was well outclassed, and the other had him efficiently on his back with a point at his throat before he could mount any defense.

He yielded, the crowd cheered, and in a quick motion the one in white sheathed the sword, stepped to one side, and reached down to help him up. It was a graceful, characteristic movement Leliana had probably seen a thousand times: watching Cassandra spar, or from the other side.

Her mind seized on it and took off in a dozen directions, and she covered her mouth to hide a gasp.

Maker’s breath, it couldn’t be really. She was imagining things. But now she could see the knight walked like her, too. And it made sense. Well, no, but it fit with all of her behavior recently. And that note, her kind of joke. And why else was she not here?

Before leaving the field, possibly-Cassandra looked up at them and then bowed and put a hand to her heart, and she felt a giddy rush that seemed to reach forward twenty years from her girlhood. If it was her, Leliana would insist on explanations later, but she couldn’t argue with this surprise.

In the next hour, she came out twice more, unhorsed two riders, and became more and more clearly herself. Really, her body language was never subtle, and the antique armor fit her enough to show it, although Leliana doubted anyone else present would know what to look for. She was all at once highly amused, caught up in worrying and cheering for her, and pondering how to cover for her if it became necessary.

Which didn’t leave much attention for her companions in the box, and she almost missed it when Celene asked if she thought Ser Mathieu would win through.

“I couldn’t say,” she extemporized. “It’s in the Maker’s hands.” She shrugged and then added, with light emphasis, “It’s a shame Most Holy Valeria was called away, because she could judge all the fine points.”

“Oh, that is true,” Celene said. “Will she be able to join us at all?”  
  
“Later in the day, I think. With luck. Perhaps for the melee.”

A cheer went up around them and courtiers began making wagers; Ser Mathieu had just ridden out again. He stopped below them, took off his helmet, and saluted the empress. At the urging of the ladies around her, Celene laughed and dropped one of her lace gloves for him to catch. He held it up, grinned, and rode off to win another round.

“He is an enthusiastic boy,” Celene said, “and we are advised he’ll be of use to us.”

In the round after that, Cassandra was up a third time. Leliana clapped hard at the sight of the white shield and then moderated her hands. The templar getup was helpful, really, as it gave her an excuse to be a little partial.

Her opponent this time was a man with no mask and obnoxious oiled mustachios, dyed to match his purple and blue surcoat. Unfortunate colors for one named after spoiled meat.

After he was announced as Ser Florian Malboeuf, he rode along the stands proclaiming that he was competing under his real name—still more unfortunate—and not hiding his face because he had nothing to hide, unlike some.

On the other side of the lists, Cassandra shifted in her saddle and crossed her arms, the way she did when irritated. She spoke to the herald on her side briefly.

The herald cleared his throat, and when Malboeuf was done posturing, stepped forward and declared to the crowd that the nameless knight was dedicating their efforts “to the honor of our Divine Victoria, the Nightingale of Andraste.”

After a second, applause and approving shouts went up around them, everyone in the box glanced at her and clapped accordingly, and Celene said, “Oh, it must be one of yours indeed, Most Holy. They must have your favor, no?”

Leliana hoped her face had stayed calm and spiritual and wasn’t as pink as it felt.

She wished she could see something of Cassandra’s face inside the helmet, to know it was her for a fact, because the uncertainty had her hair on end. And she did wish she had something to throw to her, but a Divine probably should not look _that_ partial.

“After all, it is only in fun, Your Holiness,” Celene was saying.

“I do believe the Maker is far from humorless,” Leliana said. The heralds were looking at her expectantly. She leaned over the rail and raised a hand. The crowd quieted.

“Andraste must surely bless this champion of Hers,” she called out, making a large blessing gesture toward the figure that was almost definitely Cassandra.

The templar helmet dipped in acknowledgment.

“As She blesses us all,” and she made another toward Malboeuf, for the sake of fairness.

The crowd cheered once more.

* * *

Cassandra lifted her head again and smiled inside her visor. She’d been conscious of Leliana standing at the front of the imperial box every time she rode out, her slim white-and-red shape beside Celene’s glittering one. She must have figured it out by now.

And with that blessing, she’d managed to heap gracious coals of fire over Malboeuf, though he might not realize it. He probably would not learn from this, either, but it would be satisfying to knock him down.

The ribbon of Leliana’s she’d borrowed that morning for luck sat smoothly around her neck inside her collar. She could still catch a trace of her favorite complicated scent on it: apricot and amber and flowers, she’d identified so far, though Leliana refused to say what else was in it. She breathed and focused on the task of winning.

She’d felt silly from the moment she sneaked out of the Cathedral all the way up to the sound of the trumpet for the first charge, but the whole plan was turning out to be worth it.

Malboeuf finally reined his horse into place on the far side; the trumpet sounded; and then they were barreling toward each other. She aimed for the center of his purple-enameled shield and used the few seconds before impact to watch his movements.

His lance point skidded off her shield at an angle. Hers splintered with a loud crack. The crowd was a dull roar as she dropped the remains of it and picked up a new one, circling back.

He sat too far forward, raising himself in the stirrups, and said something unintelligible in passing that she assumed was another attempted insult.

The second time, as the horse pounded forward, she aimed lower and saw him slip back and grab at his saddlebow before her lance broke and his went wide. His mutter that time sounded more like a curse.

She picked up her third lance. There was a new silvery scratch in the paint on her shield, which was flaking by now, but everyone assumed she was a templar anyway. Her horse snorted and craned his neck toward the purple-draped horse to bare his teeth.

Malboeuf smoothed his ridiculous mustache and sat even further forward in his saddle, set his heels in, and at the sound of the trumpet, his horse leaped toward her. He leaned over its neck, scowling and stretching to hit first.

She braced her shield to catch his point squarely over her arm, just as her own struck below his guard, and trusting the stability of her seat, she slammed both hard toward him in the same moment.

In an explosion of wood shards, right in front of the imperial box, he went flying.

Cassandra grinned to herself as the crowd whooped and yelled, and looked up to see if Leliana had seen it.

She was clapping and smiling and the sun was bright on her face, and Cassandra felt a little unstoppable. _She must know_ , she thought, relaxing into the excited chills down her back.

Malboeuf stalked off the field refusing assistance. She had a few minutes to water the horse and feed him a carrot—which she had remembered today, thank the Maker—but then she was called up again.

In this round, they faced a big woman in green and gold called Small Nerys, with a hammer on her back, riding an animal that was practically a draft horse. The grey, refreshed, fixed it with a sidelong malevolent stare.

Perhaps aiming to match her mystery opponent’s piety, Nerys dedicated her efforts to Divine Valeria the Hero of Orlais. Cassandra silently thanked her and decided the fall she took would be appropriate.

She did fall, like a tree in the forest, and there were cheers and also boos, both of which Cassandra appreciated. But Nerys had moved remarkably fast and sat her giant horse well. Cassandra made a mental note to look her up as a Seeker candidate, if that dedication was serious.

For the next few rounds she was not called; while the empress’s young favorite knocked several more chevaliers out of the running, she stretched her legs on the sidelines, contemplated how good it would feel to take off the helmet, and distracted herself from that by watching Leliana in the box. Up there, she spent the matches in conversation with Celene and her hangers-on, but couldn’t seem to resist glancing down every few minutes. Cassandra entertained various ideas of how she would react when they spoke again. Angry? Baffled? Pleased, she hoped. Glowing, she imagined.

But she had to win first.

The final match at this point was predictable, and the audience and the bookmakers apparently agreed from the odds she overheard. When the trumpets sounded for the last two contenders, she would be facing Celene’s champion.

She’d been observing him as well; the boy was nimble and good in the saddle and clearly fonder of his horse than she was. It would have to go to swords on the ground for her to take any advantage. _Well_ , she thought, _you are only here to show off dramatically; don’t deny it_.

When he had worked through the remaining challengers, there was a break with musicians and tumblers on the field while more bets changed hands and spectators refreshed themselves. She strode away from audience members who approached her, and ducked into an empty arming tent to open her visor for a quick drink of water.

After the musicians had taken their bows and filed off, she led the grey from the horse lines to the edge of the lists, promising him this was the last time, and dusted some mud off the white caparisons before mounting and accepting a lance from one of the runners. She weighed it in her hand, adjusted her shield on the other arm, and tightened a loose buckle on her shoulder.

Ser Mathieu, already mounted on the far side, raised his lance in a good-natured salute to her; the purple and gold pennant at the tip fluttered against the blue late-afternoon sky.

The crowd muttered quietly to itself. Celene had stepped to the front of the box again beside Leliana, and the light winked off her mask.

Cassandra saluted him back. They ritually lowered their lances to horizontal and waited for the heralds to clear the field. Everyone was dozy and slow in the sun, warm and heavy, the tension pressing down.

Finally the trumpet call cut the air. She nudged the horse, he lunged forward eager to be finished, and they were racing toward the purple and gold pair, hooves pounding.

She was watching Mathieu’s lance and aiming hers for the lion on his shield, when suddenly with a twist he was clinging to the far side of his saddle like a trick rider, letting it clatter to the ground, nothing to hit but emptiness.

The crowd exploded with screams. She cursed mildly to herself as she brought the grey around, slowing. She was not about to try that, but he couldn't do it again if he wanted to score a hit himself.

After he had collected his lance and hugged his horse’s neck to the approval of the audience, they squared off again.

This time the grey charged off the line with his head down as if personally offended, nearly bucking Cassandra out of position. She leaned over his neck and tracked Mathieu’s lance point driving toward her, the little Valmont pennant flapping. She counted seconds, three, two, one, then burst up behind her shield with hard directed force, knocking his point away. It flew wide, swinging to pass her harmlessly by.

More shouts and groans from the crowd. She’d sacrificed her own hit that time; the third might decide it.

Circle, rein in, back to the starting line, wait. The horse reared a little and whinnied in frustration. The herald raised his trumpet and blew a third time.

She pressed her center of gravity low and locked her thighs on the saddle as the horse jolted forward. She imagined herself unshakable, muscle and bone connected to the animal's. The distance closed, and as she struck Mathieu’s shield, in the same instant she caught his point on her own with bruising force. Splinters flew, both lances cracked, and the double shock traveled down through her shoulders and back, but she held fast.

So did he: still a draw. Very well.

As the audience rose up with shouts and pounding on the benches, Mathieu circled around, opened his helmet, and smiled in a comradely, conspiratorial way. Clearly, he wanted a more dramatic finish too.

She acknowledged him with a nod, dismounted, and handed a runner her reins.

The ring for the passage of swords was below the imperial box, marked out with sand and bunting. The heralds positioned them at the middle and looked up to Celene for the signal to begin.

The empress, standing at the rail in her bright mask, called, “Go!” and Leliana beside her applauded, and Cassandra snapped her attention back down to the man before her and the sword in her hand.

On foot, Mathieu fought by the book, but it was a comprehensive book and he must have been an attentive pupil at the Academie des Chevaliers. He had good reach, good speed, and an eye for her movements, and she began to enjoy pressing his defense for weak points.

She circled and kept him moving and reacting with quick attacks on either side, hoping he would tire faster, as they usually did.

The borrowed sword was just unfamiliar enough that it turned uncomfortably in her hand. She thought wistfully of the rack of better ones in her chambers as she lunged, then wrenched it back up to block his riposte, steel ringing.  
  
Before she got inside his reach, Mathieu stepped out of hers, feinted right, then spun all the way around in a showy power attack. She ducked behind her shield as his blade gouged the paint again, numbing her arm. Outside her focus, the audience hooted and shouted encouragement. She thought she heard Leliana's voice among the multitude of cries and decided to believe it, though she couldn't look up.

She pressed in between her shield and his left side, and aimed a downward cut that he barely deflected in time. He jumped back again, teeth white in a grin under his helmet.

Sweat stung her eyes. She blinked it away and turned in place, tracking him without chasing.

He must have learned the twenty defensive forms and their cadences, but they had prescribed steps like any Orlesian court dance, and going off-book had won her much greater victories. She would have to step on his feet a little.

Whenever she broke from the expected pattern, he moved slower and missed counters, but came back on the offensive with more energy. She recognized a few of his attacks from Oiselle’s manual of swordsmanship: Seeker Byron’s old standby.

And she’d thought she knew everything too when she came to Byron. Much more arrogant than this boy, in hindsight.

She kept her shield up and parried a barrage of well executed cuts and thrusts while the crowd’s roaring washed over her and she considered her old mentor’s methods. Then she laughed; she had a plan, of sorts.

Mathieu began another elaborate feinting tactic, Oiselle's diversionary turn, followed by a swift Rialto advance that might have smarted if she were still standing there. But she needed him within her reach, and so the next time she let him make contact, landing a blow to her shield arm that would bruise.

Then she slowed down, intending him to think she was tiring, letting her guard slip enough that his sword glanced off her armor a handful of times. He stepped closer with each, growing more confident. The empress’s lackeys in the box above yelled, “Valmont!”

He pressed her back to the edge of the circle, and finally she dropped to a knee with their swords locked in tight proximity. From this angle she had a clear view of Leliana above her, gripping the rail of the box with all the tension that didn’t show on her face.

As steel ground against steel, Mathieu levered his blade into a predictable disarming move that twisted the hilt out of her hand. She let sword and shield drop, and saw the same triumph in him that she remembered feeling when she thought she disarmed Byron in their very first bout.

In his moment of overconfidence, she drew on her banked energy to spring up and seize his sword with both mailed hands, pushing him off balance and wresting it away. His triumphant expression turned to an equally familiar dismay as he stumbled back. She thumped him with the pommel, not hard enough to damage, and he tripped and fell in the sand.

The crowd was up and shouting again, pounding their feet.

She pointed his own blade at him two-handed. Mathieu turned his head to look from side to side, then threw up his hands. “I yield!” he said, spitting out sand and laughing.

She helped him up and gave his sword back as the trumpets played another fanfare and the heralds came forward.

Mathieu pulled off his helm and shook her hand. “Next time, perhaps,” he said, with another good-natured smile. “Or if we don’t meet again, I thank you for the unexpected lesson, messere.” The noise almost drowned him out. Even Celene’s courtiers were applauding politely around Leliana, who was leaning out and clapping harder. Celene herself looked excited under her mask.

One herald lifted her arm over her head while a second called out the formal announcement of the nameless chevalier as winner. The third herald presented a chaplet of red roses and greenery on a velvet pillow: the victor’s garland. Cassandra took it with her free hand.

She had done it. Carried her absurd sentimental impulse nearly all the way through, answered her own challenge, and all that remained was the most important part. She was sorely tempted to just rip the sweaty helmet off and declare herself; but no, Leliana would be furious to see her delicate political groundwork for their sake smashed to pieces.

So, she left it on, and disguised her voice again, and told the herald in her dreadful false accent to ask the Divine if she would accept the garland as tribute.

He ran up to the box and she watched him bow and speak with Leliana, who nodded and followed him back down the steps; then both heralds retreated to give her space as she crossed the sand.

Cassandra knelt to observe the formalities, but looked up at her.

The breeze flapped Leliana’s veil, her face was a little sunburnt, and there was no one else close enough to see the delight and suppressed laughter in her eyes.

"For you," Cassandra said in her own voice, muffled by the visor. Since she could not crown her in the traditional way of champion and beloved, she held it out like an offering.

Leliana took it from her. Her smile was private and disbelieving and lit her face the way Cassandra had hoped for. When she composed herself, her expression promised that this was far from finished.

She took a breath and called out to the crowd who could not see it, “All glory comes from the Maker and returns to Him, who knows your name and must continue to bless you.” She laid one hand on the steel over Cassandra’s forehead.

As the crowd cheered, Leliana said in a more conversational tone the heralds might overhear, “Divine Valeria will be so very sorry to have missed this. I’ll have to discuss it with her later. At length.”

Cassandra stifled a laugh inside her helmet and mentally girded herself for the rest of the day until then.

* * *

After Leliana climbed back into the box holding the garland Cassandra had risked all propriety to win for her, and tucked all her feelings about it behind her Divine face again, and watched her disappear behind the tents, the break to reset and prepare for the melee felt tediously long. The musicians and acrobats and food-sellers came out again and trooped around the stands to entertain, but all the courtiers wanted to talk about was the mystery champion and how they had vanished and who it could be.

Just as the fanfare was sounding for the melee combatants, there was another clamor below and Cassandra entered the box as herself, immaculate in very proper spotless robes and with a proper guard from the Cathedral waiting below.

"I am sorry I could not join all of you sooner," she began, addressing the general company when they stood, her gaze lingering on Leliana's.

"Oh, so are we. You have missed such an exciting morning, Most Holy," said the empress.

"Yes," said Leliana, not looking away, "it was quite thrilling. But you must tell her, Your Radiance." And then she had the further pleasure of watching Cassandra try not to react to Celene's rather embellished account of the mystery knight's victory and equally strange disappearance.

Celene lowered her voice to reach only them as she finished. "We supported Mathieu, of course, but we confess, we are happy the Maker spared us an awkward moment.” She gestured to the garland where Leliana had set it in water. “Who does Your Holiness think it could be? One of our ladies is swearing it must be a spirit from the Golden City."

Cassandra did not laugh, but a telltale line of effort appeared between her brows. “To me it sounds like an overzealous idiot who has heard too many stories,” she said, glancing down to touch one of the roses. “But I cannot fault their choice.”

Leliana clasped her hands and contained the desire to reach for her and kiss her silly, down beside her other feelings about this. Instead, she said, “It is such a beautiful offering. I have some ideas.”

Then she led all the ladies around them into a diversionary flurry of speculation about current templar officers and other popular and pious chevaliers who might have competed in disguise. Cassandra leaned on the railing and looked vaguely disgusted with each suggestion.

“Maybe I should send my people to track down this vanishing paragon,” Leliana said at last to provoke her a little. “We are still in need of a Right Hand, are we not?”

At that she finally coughed hard into her sleeve to cover a laugh. “If you must.”

Celene excused herself to find refreshment and her ladies faded back after her with polite curtsies.

They stood and watched the fighting below, where the field was thinning out, and caught each other casting occasional glances at the garland on the table. Their fingers were quite close together on the box railing, but they didn’t touch.

Cassandra said absently, “About that. I have been considering asking the Inquisitor. If you think she would take it well.”

“If you are really going to let someone take the job, of course she would.”

“Well, only if she agrees. And is your choice for Left still dragging his feet?”

“I’ve only just begun,” Leliana said. “He will come around.”

Cassandra gave her a wry smile that grew warmer as their eyes met and held each other.

“Ah, Your Perfection! Perfections!” A jovial man’s voice, too close, startled her. It was the Fereldan ambassador again, bowing. Leliana forced her serene expression back on and turned to him.

“You must be proud,” he went on as he straightened.

“Oh, yes, it is a banner day for the Chantry. I don’t think a court tournament has ever been won by a spirit of valor straight from the bosom of the Maker.”

Behind her Cassandra coughed into her sleeve again.

The ambassador hesitated and then laughed, unsure she was joking. “Maker be praised. Did you know what they intended beforehand?”

“Not at all. In fact, I wish I could ask my mysterious champion back to the Cathedral for a chat,” Leliana said. “I would have so very many questions.”

Cassandra’s feet shifted among the robe hems.

“They could be there now, Most Holy, if it is truly a templar,” the ambassador pointed out, oblivious.

“That is quite possible.”

He finished his drink. “Well, my excuses, Your Holinesses. I must go collect on a little wager.”

“Blessed Andraste keep you,” Leliana said, thanking Andraste personally as he left. She turned back to Cassandra, who appeared intent on the action below.

“It cannot be very much longer.” She pointed down to the field. “Look, Small Nerys may have him.”

“Good for her.” Leliana could be as patient as need be, but today she did not want to. The desire for answers was starry and sultry inside her.

“She took a fall in my name,” Cassandra said. “I hear. I think I must congratulate her on the victory.”

“Must you?”

“Briefly.”

* * *

  
By the time the melee was done and the prize awarded, the sky was pink and gold over the city, though among the courtiers Cassandra had felt like the day would never end. Leliana had not stopped teasing her with veiled statements and glances, every one of which made desire tighten inside her.

She'd formally offered Small Nerys the Maker's blessing in a way she hoped made sense, and they had taken their leave of the empress and her coterie in the draggingly slow appropriate way, and the carriage had made its way around early revelers in the streets as Leliana made conversation for the guards' benefit while giving her significant looks and playing with her hand.

By the time they reached the Cathedral, carrying the rose garland still on its pillow for everyone to comment on and hear the abbreviated story, she was overflowing with the need to finally tell her everything.

Inside their doors, Leliana struck a light for the lamps in their niches and turned to her, dropping her polite face. “Cassandra, do not say another word until you explain what on the Maker’s earth possessed you to do it. I expect my own wild impulses, but—”

The simplest answer first. “I can't sing.” She set the garland on Leliana’s head, tugging it down over her hair, and added, “I did think about doing this on the field, but I thought a political crisis would not be the best Summerday gift for you. Best beloved.”

Leliana gave a short laugh and sat down in the chair beside the doors. Words seemed to choke her. “You … I … oh, right now I would have let you.” She put her face in her hands, her laugh subsided, and when she glanced up there was a glint of tears in her eyes. “I was very surprised. How did you even …”

“It doesn’t matter. I only wanted you to know.” Cassandra touched her shoulder, warm and tense, felt it relax. “And let me do the talking for once. There is more I should say.” She lifted a lock of red hair behind her ear, under the twined stems. “First is that you do so much for me.”

“Not as much as I want." Leliana recovered some archness, raising her chin so that her profile caught the light.

She spread her fingers to feel its fine structure, cheekbone and jawline and the pulse in her throat. Leliana leaned into her hand. She touched the rose leaves. “I decided to win this for you, like an utter mooncalf who has somehow stumbled into the office of Divine, but it is not enough.”

Leliana turned her lips against her palm, and touching her face became not enough either. Cassandra bent down and kissed her like it had been much more than a day, both hands down her neck and up into her hair, kissed tears out of her eyes. She responded with equal intensity, rising half out of the chair, her mouth hot and ardent.

Her collar was unbuttoned at the top, and Cassandra felt for more buttons. “Just keep doing that right now, and I’ll wait my turn to talk,” Leliana said between breaths.

The fastenings were hidden in the thick sunburst embroidery down the front, knots of gold satin cord that slid out of their loops easily. Cassandra recognized her shift underneath, more thin white linen, laces to the waist. The heat built within her. “I will,” she said, “but not right here with the poor Knights-Divine outside.”

Leliana straightened, disarraying herself more, and pulled her into another emphatic silent kiss that might as well have said _but yes right now_.

Cassandra tried to remember what else she wanted to say while they walked-stumbled through the dark hallway to the closer bedchamber, not hers.

“You should have much more,” she said, “and I have been …”

She continued undoing her buttons and laces as she’d promised, spreading the fabric open, caressing her through the thin shift. The velvety sharp and green scents of the garland filled her throat, overlaying the smell of Leliana's skin so she almost tasted it, and couldn't get enough. She let her tongue come up with words without thinking. “I am still not sure I deserve this.”

Leliana broke her silence, vehement. “You know the things I've done. Or you can guess. If anyone is undeserving—” She kissed her bent head. “I don’t believe that.”

"I wish I had learned about the Maker you see,” Cassandra said against her skin. “You do make me so …” She halted and made herself go on. “Wonderfully shameless."

She pulled herself away and found candles to light then, wanting to see her. Leliana was beautiful in this disarray, petals red on red in her hair, pale sinewy shoulders, breasts tipped startlingly rosy like the center of a white-fleshed peach. She slid her arms out of the vestment sleeves.

“People say, ‘I could eat you up.’ I never understood that, before.”

Her face warmed to say it even now, and Leliana laughed. “You are welcome to.” Still arch, but there was a breathiness in her voice. “Oh, but I promised to be quiet.”

She pulled her close again, running hands up her back, and Leliana’s fingers dug into her arm like a demand to continue.

Cassandra continued tasting her, methodically, kissing from the salt on her cheek down the curve of her neck, the slope of firm muscle into softness. She drank in the way Leliana gave herself over to reacting without speaking, the force of her heart and tension of her effort to keep still.

She slipped the unlaced shift off her shoulders, over her hips, followed it down, arms around Leliana's legs. The high carved footboard of Divine Victoria’s curtained bed was at her back.

She slid hands up her thighs and behind her, opening her legs, breathing her in. Leliana curled her arm around the bedpost and sighed, leaning her forehead against it as Cassandra licked into the hidden wet shell of her.

She held her hips with both hands and drew out her tasting further, wanting to drink her down, surfeit herself on the feel and sight and sound. Leliana’s feet flexed in the heap of her clothes as she strained against the hold. Cassandra inhaled and looked up. “I love that you will never make things easy for me.”

She groaned and clung to the bedpost and pushed herself wordlessly into Cassandra’s face, shivering and soft and avid, muscles leaping in her thighs. Cassandra braced herself to take more of her weight and pushed back, pressing her still in short hard strokes that made sounds come high in her throat, though she wouldn’t stay still, until, too quickly, it seemed, she stiffened with a long low cry and clutched at her head to stop her.

Leliana let go the post and dropped forward in a warm tumult of arms and hair and bruised roses. She laid her cheek on Cassandra’s shoulder, her breathing ragged. Rose-leaves tickled Cassandra’s face.

After a moment, when her body had calmed, she felt Leliana touch her bare neck above the collar, then find her buttons and begin undoing them. When she found the borrowed ribbon, she sat up. “This is mine. You wore it all day? Maker's fucking _breath_ , Cassandra.” She tugged her in by it and kissed her hard.

When her mouth was hers again, Cassandra said, "It did help."

Leliana brushed fallen petals off her face and patted at the garland, still mostly intact. “We should put this somewhere safe,” she said, working it off her head and untangling her hair. “I want to preserve it.”

She held it out, and Cassandra got up to set it carefully on the chest by the candles. As she was returning, Leliana climbed into the bed and stretched out in a pale naked arc.

Cassandra stroked across her skin and wanted to feel it with all of hers. She divested herself of her remaining clothes and slid under the sheet next to her, cooling heavy linen.

Leliana rolled over, and she ran her hand up the furrow of her spine to the back of her neck. Leliana's hair, dense cropped silk, slipped through her fingers, and she closed them to hold on. With a humming sound of pleasure, Leliana turned to let her head fall back in her grip.

“Tell me one more thing,” she said, eyes closed. “Where did you hide the horse and the rest of it?”

Cassandra’s laugh was abrupt. “The Order had—has—a safe house network. I am not completely inept at secret operations.”

“Remind me to show you the underground exits one day soon. Mmm.” She wriggled herself closer. “This morning I was angry with you. And then, at first, I was sorry you weren't there to see it. The most obnoxious of the chevaliers.”

“I did enjoy that.”

She smiled, eyes still closed. “And ‘Nightingale of Andraste.’ I liked that very much.”

Cassandra’s face warmed further. “But now the court and the Cathedral are talking of nothing else. Maybe it was too far.”

“So, I shouldn’t tell Varric the news when I write to him, then?”

“ _Maker_ ,” Cassandra said with actual horror.

Leliana laughed and opened her eyes. “They will all be fascinated with the mystery until they drop it for the next thing.” She paused, gaze sharpening. “Actually, planting a few more false leads to the mysterious chevalier’s identity may be a good way to divert attention from other matters. Or even from the Exalted Council. Let me handle it.”

“It is sometimes frightening that I love you.”

Leliana took her hands and turned to face her. “I could say the same. You could have been hurt.”

She snorted. “Not very likely.”

“Not likely? I had my heart in my throat over you. Celene tried to talk to me during one of your rounds and I fear I snubbed Her Radiance.”

This time Cassandra’s laugh was more pleased than embarrassed.

“It’s possibly the most romantic thing anyone has done for me, you know. No, I will say, definitely. I am not used to this. I don’t even know what’s next.”

She felt the blood rush up through her whole body again. “I should still do more.”

The blue of Leliana’s eyes was dark and her voice shifted low and sincere. “Cassandra, you are not like anyone.”

She pushed forward to catch her lips, overcome. Leliana kissed back languorously, arching into her and perhaps not ready to sleep yet.

She pulled one hand above her head to draw Cassandra over her, and their fingers interlocked, gripping and sliding.

As she kissed her, Cassandra felt down her body to find her inner thighs still warmly slick, pressed the same sliding rhythm into her, more and faster when she asked, the heel of her right hand in Leliana's palm, pinning it.

Soon the back of Leliana's hand was tense with clenching around hers, her arm straining, a fine sweat rising on her chest, her mouth eager and the rest of her taut and shaking. Cassandra ached from the day's exertions and the present ones, and Leliana’s pleasure beneath her only deepened it.

Leliana pulled her hair, bore down hard on both her hands, and her breathing turned to a whimpering sound as she pinioned her fingers and came again, dissolving in liquid heat that made Cassandra gasp.

They both lay panting, Leliana’s eyes closed, lips flushed. Her lashes were dark copper on her cheeks in the candlelight. Stray petals were satiny and crushed on her skin. Cassandra pressed her face into the space between neck and shoulder and breathed in as hers slowed, heartbeat echoing between her own legs.

“Just give me a moment before I return the favor,” Leliana said hoarsely, then cleared her throat. “Well, part of it.”

“But that is what I have been trying to do.”

“How does the riddle song go? 'I gave my love a story that had no end,' or sometimes a ring, but it is a circle.” She turned over and pushed herself up to look down at Cassandra.

“I still have something to tell you. And”—she kissed a line down Cassandra’s belly—“it would be most unchivalrous of you to deny me what I’ve been thinking of all day.”

Yielding was the only choice, then.

Leliana’s tongue was so sweet and so precise that she broke within seconds, like an overfilled vessel pierced and spilling; once and then twice more in quick violent succession, unable to keep from saying her name, until she released her, glowing and smug.

After, she lay wrapped in Leliana’s arms, delicious heaviness within the cradle of her hips, bruises and strains of the week forgotten. The candles had not yet burned out. “Tell me what else you wanted to say.”

“Yes, that. I said I didn’t know what was next, but I think I do. Tomorrow, before the Summerday ceremonies, I want you to meet someone with me,” Leliana said. “I believe her case can start a dialogue about reforming certain vows.” She kissed Cassandra’s hand. “And then we write an encyclical, or declare a council, or whatever is necessary.

“I don’t want to spark another insurrection,” she went on. “The Circles, that was one thing. But I want to do this too, before we are old. However you think is the right way.”

Cassandra’s heart was so full that all she could do was say, “Leliana,” again and hug her.

She laughed. “And after that I _will_ win you an archery tournament when you least expect it. Don’t think I won’t.”

* * *

And so, on Summerday morning, the rose garland hung to dry in the little chapel before Andraste, the dawn prayers of celebration were offered, and the Maker’s Right and Left Hands went out together to start changing their world in another small way.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKwzw_xyNEw), specifically, is the version of "Black Is the Color" I was thinking of.


End file.
